Enough Project

Major U.S. jewellery companies and retailers have started to take substantive steps to eliminate the presence of “conflict gold” from their supply chains, according to the results of a year-long investigation published Monday.

For the first time, nearly 1,300 U.S. companies have filed reports on whether the products they manufacture or sell are made with minerals that have bankrolled conflict in the Great Lakes region of central Africa.

The United States’ second-highest court has upheld most of a landmark U.S. law requiring companies to ascertain and publicly disclose whether proceeds from minerals used to manufacture their products may be funding conflict in central Africa.

The United States' main foreign aid funder, USAID, released a mission statement Wednesday that includes new focus on ending extreme poverty while also promising to be more inclusive in incorporating civil society and other input in its decision-making.

Major manufacturing and business groups on Tuesday urged a court here to roll back a new U.S. regulation that would soon require major manufacturers to ensure that their global supply chains are free of minerals used to fund violence in the Great Lakes region of central Africa.

Countries in Africa’s Great Lakes region are moving too slowly on an international plan to certify the sourcing of “conflict minerals”, researchers here are warning, a failure that could threaten the entire certification process.

With casualties in the long-running conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) now surpassing every conflict since World War II, U.S. policymakers and advocates are stepping up campaigns to raise awareness and push legislation aimed at encouraging new negotiations, assisting in government reforms, and pressuring the neighbouring countries that have propped up the DRC’s government.